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Death sentence for would-be plane hijackers in China

Death sentence for would-be plane hijackers in China

Updated 11 December 2012, 21:36 AEDT

A Chinese court has sentenced three men to death for trying to hijack a plane earlier this year.

[File] Riot police on a street in Urumqi in Xinjiang. The region is home to around nine million Uighurs, many of whom complain of religious and cultural repression by Chinese authorities -- a claim the government denies -- and the region is regularly hit (Credit: AFP)

Three men in China's Xinjiang region have been sentenced to death for attempting to hijack an aircraft.

The state news agency says a fourth man was sentenced to life in prison, over the incident in June this year.

Chinese authorities said in June that six members of China's Uighur minority tried to seize a Tianjin Airline plane, shortly after it took off from Hotan in the far-western region, but were thwarted by passengers and crew.

The plane was returned safely to the airport in Hotan -- which has seen a spate of violent clashes between mainly Muslim Uighurs and police due to simmering ethnic tensions -- and the suspects were detained, authorities said.

"The six hijackers are Uighurs," Hou Hanmin, a spokeswoman for the Xinjiang government told AFP after the incident on June 29.

Two security personnel were seriously injured, state media said at the time.

Xinjiang is home to around nine million Uighurs, many of whom complain of religious and cultural repression by Chinese authorities -- a claim the government denies -- and the region is regularly hit by unrest.

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